Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2017 (PDF 8.3MB)

Materiality Assessment

Walgreens Boots Alliance has a deep history in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) through its legacy companies and has undergone a thorough process to define the economic, environmental and social issues through which it has the most impact. Through our CSR materiality assessment process we consider issues that stakeholders bring to our attention.

Our internal CSR materiality assessment process takes into account issues that are relevant given the nature of our business while also assessing what issues we are best placed to address because of our influence in the health sector and because of our extended footprint across the world. The health and wellbeing of the communities we serve, locally and beyond, has consistently arisen as our most material CSR issue.

Analyzing our priority CSR issues, measuring our economic, environmental and social impacts and reporting on our efforts and progress is part of our process of aligning with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a widely used set of sustainability reporting standards.

As part of our CSR materiality assessment process we mapped out potential material topics as well as issues raised by stakeholders. We considered the relevance of each topic to internal and external stakeholders, and the relevance of each topic to the Company. We also consider wider societal expectations and our influence on customers and suppliers to determine priority topics.

Through the mapping, and as a result of the inputs described above, we confirmed that the issues most relevant to us are reflected in our 12 goals, which are grouped in four focus areas where we can have the most impact: Community, Environment, Marketplace and Workplace.

We are determined to protect the environment and do our part to ensure it flourishes for future generations. We understand our potential positive impact and are taking actions to achieve three Environment CSR goals:

Reduce our energy consumption and emissions on a comparable basis* as defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Reduce the waste we create, on a comparable basis*, and contribute to the drive for increasingly circular economies through increased re-use and recycling

Develop plans to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020, collaborating with other organizations in a global initiative

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